Question 3. Learning outcomes and pros and cons

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4.1.3 Question 3. Learning outcomes and pros and cons

The importance of English learning

All former attendees interviewed are Taiwanese citizens. The average age group sample is 28 years old. Concerning the frequency of attendance, one student attends at least two cram schools in their academic path. All interviewees experienced going to regular cram schools and 50 percent of them experienced also going to a non-academic cram school. All participants studied at least one of those subjects;

Mathematics or English. The results show that 75 percent of the former attendees, attended English class and 62,5 percent attended Maths class.

Learning outcomes

In the literature review, the researcher argued about Biggs’ (1987) idea, that how students learn depends on presage factors related to both the person and the learning environment. Most students want to learn to influence their academic performance, and this argument is largely mentioned as being the reason why students attend cram school, it was mentioned 100% by the interviews conducted that students attended cram school to get better grades.

The study has discovered that the teacher’s ability was an important factor in one's choice of cram school, 87,5 percent of former attendees mentioned that teachers taught better in cram school.

In the literature review, cram schooling is said to be more of a mimic behavior (Chang & Yi, 2004). As Participant I mentioned that using rote memorization in cram school prevented her from learning new skills and thinking in new ways. Because of that; she said that she didn’t like her experience: “Not at all. Because all I did was imitate. Before going to cram school, I thought of studying new things but in fact, cram school’s goal is to pass the examination, it doesn’t really “teach.” Other than participant I, all other students didn’t mention anything about rote memorizing and its

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disadvantages. One thing that Participant K mentioned is the inability for students to get a chance to really explore oneself fully. Participant M mentioned the uncertain effect of going to cram school in terms of performance and said it depended largely on the students’ motivation. Participant N said it was a waste of time and money and his experience as a cram school student was “fair”. Participant O mentioned the convenience of online teaching, that cram school teachers are better; and you get a chance to learn more from them. From experience, the staff ‘s attitude was poor in one of her cram schools and that students are too many in one single classroom.

The rote-learning method is part of the testing-oriented education in Asian culture and has shown its successful outcomes in certain domains. Taiwanese students keep ahead having high scores in Mathematics. Liu (2011) argued in the same way that cram schools do help in the academic improvement of school children and may have a positive influence on students’ academic performance. Tsai (2002) suggested in his research that going to cram school was in fact perceived as an opportunity to access to higher education. On the other hand, Chang’s argues that cram school on student’s mathematics performance only showed negligible improvement. The researcher sought to look at the grades of our participants in order to see if Liu or Chang’s assumptions on cram schools student’s performance were true or false. Unfortunately, only three answered that question with a specific number. The received three grades are as follow; 87/100 from participant L, a B from participant O and 70/100 from participant N. The first two grades are considered as a “good’ and the last one as

“average”. Two other interviewees gave some detail to help us answer that question.

Participant K mentioned receiving good grades despite his “unlikeable” experience in cram school. Participant P said cram school effectively helped her get better grades when she was almost failing. After going to cram school to get some support, she slowly progressed and scored over 12 out of 20 in all following exams. More than a half of the interviewee received good grades.

Cram school experience

In this part, we will look closely at three different former attendee’s cram school

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experience Participant I, J and K. Participant I is an interesting interviewee as she is into Arts and French language. Next year, she will study in France in the Art school of Tours. She attended both academic and non-academic cram schools. The reason why she attended a non-academic cram school was to learn Art.

When the interview started, the first question was about knowing what factor drove indeed learned new skills in cram school, “In my school there weren’t any art classes provided in our curriculum. So I did learn new skills in Cram school.” Participant I said “if you go to cram school, the higher chances you get to succeed at your final exam, also you get to do the same as everybody else, it’s a direct ticket to University finally, you get to see different things because students come from all around Taiwan.”

As for negative aspects, she felt as though she wasn’t encouraged to make new friends or to explore more artistic subjects and endeavours as that these kinds of interactions are not as important as receiving the best grades. Also, she said that it limits your imagination because they require realistic ideas and there’s no place for imagination.

Participant J had a different experience from Participant I, as he was a cram school teacher himself, he gave insightful information about his experience as a former attendee. Firstly he agreed on the idea that cram school teachers teach in a better way than regular school teachers: “I chose this cram school because it is renowned and teachers teach well.” For him, the goal of the cram school is to learn what you want in the most efficient way, combining easy and excellence. He did improve his English and other skills. On his behalf, he said cram school’s advantage is its ability to give students new ways of learning in a more efficient way. Compared with Participant I, participant J says it’s a good way to practice to perfect your skills, it is a good way to make friends. “Cram school is important because you make up for what you don’t learn in regular school. It is useful to train in other specialties. I have evolved stronger throughout this experience.” However, he says that cram schooling takes a lot of time during childhood and that a child could spend his time differently/better doing other

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activities instead. As a suggestion to make his experience more interesting, he argued that sitting in the front row of the class as much possible, and revise your lessons when you get back home and review your homework is very helpful. His overall experience was rather positive.

Cram school Experiences are different from a participant to another but some similarities can also be triggered: Participant K will be our last example of our attendee’s cram school experience as it provides once more a new approach to understanding the cram school experience. His experience was rather negative; he argued that the pressure to get a title and succeed makes people motivated to study.

As a positive aspect; he mentioned teacher assistants as being helpful in answering questions and correcting homework. Also, he appreciated that teachers are able to recognize each individual even coming from different schools. Cram school is a remedy when regular schoolteachers don’t teach well. On the contrary, the negative aspects similar to participant I, cram schools prevent the individual from participating to other activities (for instance: working for an association), it is expensive and it only allows students to solve problems and it doesn’t give a real chance to explore oneself.

Similar to participant K, participant J said “If you don’t need any supplementary classes, then study by yourself and don’t go to cram school, instead explore the world by traveling and socializing with different communities.” Throughout the interviews of participants J and K, the main point was; if you go to cram school you might miss out on opportunities happening outside schooling.

The common and main idea from all interviewees was that regular school teachers don’t teach well enough and that is the reason why students have to resort to cram school.